Pa. girl to leave hospital after lung transplants

PHILADELPHIA – A 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl whose plight for a new pair of lungs spurred a national debate over organ transplants is going home Tuesday, her mother said Monday.

In a posting on her Facebook page Janet Murnaghan wrote "WE ARE GOING HOME TOMORROW!!!!!!"

Her daughter Sarah Murnaghan, who has end-stage cystic fibrosis, received two lung transplants this summer at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia after a federal judge intervened in her parents' lawsuit challenging national transplant rules that put her at the end of the waiting list for adult lungs.

The news Monday capped days of upbeat progress reports from Murnaghan, of Newtown Square.

On Sunday, she said her daughter was taken off oxygen, although she still gets support from a machine that helps her to breathe, and had started to walk with the aid of a walker, even venturing outside.

"My sister pointed out that today is our Mom's birthday — she died 11 years ago," Janet Murnaghan wrote Saturday on her Facebook page. "And today is the first day Sarah has not needed any supplemental oxygen. Miracles from heaven!!!"

Family spokeswoman Tracy Simon said Sarah's recovery is now focused on building her muscle strength so she no longer has to use a breathing tube. She said Sarah recovered from a case of pneumonia that stemmed from the tube.

Sarah's first set of adult lungs failed after a June 12 transplant. A second set was transplanted three days later.

Her parents sued to change a national transplant policy that put her at the bottom of the adult list for patients 12 and older. After the federal judge intervened, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network – the private nonprofit group that manages U.S. organ allocation – added Sarah to the adult list.

The case raised questions among some health specialists and medical ethicists about how organ donation rules are developed and under what circumstances they might be disregarded.